My mother said it like it was casual

My mother said it like it was casual,

like it was just a detail,

like it didn't crack something open.

"You were almost going to be called..."

and then the name,

strange in her mouth,

foreign but possible,

the way a different life is always possible

until the moment it isn't.

I tried to imagine it on a report card.

I tried to imagine my father saying it.

I tried to imagine the small version of me

answering to something else,

growing up inside a different shape.

It would have changed everything.

The way people looked at me,

the jokes they would have made,

the way I would have learned to carry

a sound that belonged to someone else

before it belonged to me.

But it didn't happen.

I got this name instead,

this one, the one that's been on

every document,

every test,

every introduction,

and I don't even know

if I like it anymore,

if it fits, if it ever did,

or if I've just worn it thin enough

that I've stopped noticing.

My mother didn't know

it would bother me,

this thing that almost was,

this ghost name hanging

in the air between us.

I'm someone's almost,

and I'll never know

who that person would have been.